Archive for March, 2010

From Louisiana-Lafayette to Oregon: click here for a list of UGA’s non-conference football games scheduled through 2016.

ATHENS – For the first time in seven years, Georgia has a first-team All-SEC men’s basketball player.

Sophomore forward Trey Thompkins received the honor Tuesday by unanimous vote of the league’s coaches, becoming the Bulldogs’ first All-SEC first-teamer since Jarvis Hayes in 2003.

Thompkins hasn’t said whether he’ll return for his junior season next year or possibly enter the NBA draft, but teammate Albert Jackson said he  thinks Thompkins will return and make a run at the SEC’s Player of the Year Award.

“Oh, yeah, definitely, I think he’s going to be back next year,” Jackson said.  “I can’t say because I’m not him, but definitely he enjoys college. He’s enjoying it up here at Georgia, and I think he’s really excited to keep developing. He’s not satisfied with just coming to Georgia and playing; he wants to achieve a lot of things. And I think until …

Continue reading Teammate ‘definitely’ thinks Trey Thompkins will be back at UGA next season »

UGA provided a list this morning of  future scheduled non-conference football games (other than the obvious  annual games against Georgia Tech).  All of these games have been previously reported on an individual basis, but here they are  in one place, with the amount of money the visiting team  will receive from the home team  in each case:

Sept. 4, 2010: University of Louisiana Lafayette, Athens ($875,000)

Oct. 2, 2010: University of Colorado, Boulder ($825,000)

Nov. 6, 2010:  Idaho State University, Athens ($525,000)

Sept. 3, 2011: University of Louisville, Athens ($250,000)

Sept. 17, 2011: Coastal Carolina, Athens ($475,000)

Nov. 5, 2011: New Mexico State University, Athens ($925,000)

Sept. 15, 2012: University of Louisville, Louisville ($250,000)

Aug. 31, 2013: University of North Texas, Athens ($975,000)

Date TBA, 2013: Appalachian State University, Athens ($325,000)

Date TBA, 2013: Clemson University, Clemson ($300,000)

Date TBA, 2014: Clemson University, Athens …

Continue reading From Louisiana-Lafayette to Oregon: list of UGA’s future non-conference opponents »

Zach Mettenberger, a candidate to be the University of Georgia’s starting quarterback in the fall, was arrested on five misdemeanor charges over the weekend in the South Georgia town of Remerton.

Mettenberger, 18, was charged with underage consumption/possession of alcohol, disorderly conduct, obstruction and two counts of possessing fake identification, Remerton Police Chief Mike Terrell told the AJC.

The police report, obtained by the AJC, does not provide details about the circumstances surrounding Mettenberger’s arrest at 1:39 a.m. Sunday at the Flip Flops bar in Remerton, which is near Valdosta.

“I don’t have much available right now,” Terrell said in an e-mail. “We are still investigating the circumstances that led to his arrest.”

Mettenberger was transported to the Lowndes County Jail, according to the police report. He later was released on bond. He has a court date scheduled for April 27.

Under UGA Athletic Association policy, a conviction on an alcohol-related charge …

Continue reading UGA QB Mettenberger arrested in South Georgia (UPDATED) »

(Updated 7:15 p.m.)

It’ll be the Dogs vs. the Hogs at the SEC men’s basketball tournament.

Georgia and Arkansas will meet in a first-round game at 9:45 p.m. Thursday in Nashville. Georgia will be the SEC East’s No. 6 seed and Arkansas the West’s No. 3 seed.

The matchup was determined before Georgia’s 50-48 loss at LSU on Saturday.  Earlier in the day, South Carolina’s upset victory at Vanderbilt had ensured that Georgia would be the East’s No. 6 seed and Arkansas’ home loss to Ole Miss had ensured that the Razorbacks would be UGA’s first-round opponent.

Thursday’s full first-round schedule (all times Eastern, divisional seeds in parentheses):

1 p.m.: (E5) South Carolina vs.  (W4) Alabama.

3:15 p.m.: (W6) LSU vs. (E3) Tennessee.

7:30 p.m.: (W5) Auburn vs. (E4) Florida.

9:45 p.m.: (E6) Georgia vs.  (W3) Arkansas.

And Friday’s quarterfinals:

1 p.m.: South Carolina-Alabama winner vs. (E1) Kentucky

3:15 p.m.: LSU-Tennessee winner vs. (W2) Ole Miss

7:30 p.m.: Auburn-Florida …

Continue reading SEC tourney pairings set, including No. 6 seed Georgia vs. Arkansas (UPDATED) »

(For a look at the various subplots in Saturday’s Georgia-LSU game, click here.)

(Updated 9 p.m.)

ATHENS — For a guy who hasn’t played in a game, Connor Nolte certainly has generated a lot of attention for Georgia’s basketball program this year.

“This kid got us into 10 million homes,” UGA coach Mark Fox said Friday afternoon.

And the kid got Charles Barkley to Stegeman Coliseum this week.

Nolte is a Georgia walk-on from Alpharetta, a Milton High graduate who is sitting out this season after transferring from Furman.  He has a website, passersremorse.com, on which he posts a trick shot on the day of each UGA game. Game Day Trick Shot, he calls the feature.

Nolte

Last month, he got Mark Richt to shoot a one-handed reverse free throw, which garnered more than 38,000 views on YouTube. Then last Saturday, he posted a crazy shot by Fox, who twice bounced the ball off the top of the shot clock and through the net from the stands.

ESPN’s SportsCenter picked up the Fox shot, giving …

Continue reading ‘This kid got us into 10 million homes,’ Mark Fox says of walk-on Connor Nolte »

(Updated 10 p.m.)

ATHENS — Mere minutes into spring football practice at Georgia, Todd Grantham did not like the way his players broke from a huddle. So the Bulldogs’ new defensive coordinator ordered them to do it again with more enthusiasm.

The revamping of the Georgia defense began in earnest Thursday, the first day of spring football for the Bulldogs and the first day on a practice field with college players in 12 years for the intense Grantham.

“You can tell he came from The League,” said safety Nick Williams, meaning the NFL. “You can tell he’s used to coaching grown men.”

Grantham, an NFL assistant  for the past 11 seasons, began the process of converting Georgia’s former 4-3 defense to a 3-4, meaning three linemen and four linebackers rather than vice versa. Many players took the practice field in unfamiliar positions.

For example, former defensive ends Justin Houston, Cornelius Washington and Montez Robinson were playing outside linebacker.   And their transition …

Continue reading Day 1 of spring practice for Dogs’ defense: ‘We all looked lost today’ »

In his 18th year as a college head coach, John Calipari finally coached his first game in Athens on Wednesday.

Calipari

And he was very impressed by the place, he said before heading back to Lexington.

“I love it here,” the Kentucky coach said at his postgame press conference when DawgPost.com publisher Dean Legge asked about the potential of the UGA program.

First, Calipari said, “you’re in Georgia. Big deal. You got players. So you can recruit your state and do fine. . . .  [The recruits] are an hour or two hours away from campus; it’s like they’re going away to school but  they’re coming to the state institution.”

Second, he said, there’s the  practice facility adjacent to Stegeman Coliseum.  “I snuck into the practice facility. I looked at the locker rooms and all that. Incredible.”

Then there’s old Stegeman.  “I love  this building,” Calipari said.  “[It's like] our UMass building — 10,000 [seats], right on top of you, not one bad seat.”

Anything else? “I drove …

Continue reading Kentucky’s Calipari calls UGA campus ‘incredible’ and UGA job a ‘gem’ »

Twelve things to know about tonight’s Georgia-Kentucky game, which tips off at 8:04  in Stegeman Coliseum:

1. Georgia (13-14, 5-9 SEC) will be playing its eighth game this season against an opponent ranked in the nation’s Top 25 at game time. The Bulldogs are 3-4 in such games, including 3-1 at home. Kentucky  (27-2, 12-2 SEC) is ranked No. 3 in this week’s AP poll.

2. A Georgia win would complete a sweep of home games vs. SEC East opponents, following victories in Stegeman over Tennessee, Vanderbilt, South Carolina and Florida.

3. A Kentucky win would clinch a share of the Wildcats’ 44th SEC championship.

Ricky McPhee

4. It will be Senior Night, with Georgia’s three seniors — guard Ricky McPhee, forward-center Albert Jackson and forward Tyler Whatley — being honored in a pregame ceremony. All three will start, per coach Mark Fox’s practice of starting his seniors in their final home game.

5. McPhee, a former walk-on, has started every game  this season and leads the …

Continue reading Twelve things to know about tonight’s Georgia-Kentucky game »

So did yesterday’s weather get you in the mood for some spring football or what?

And here we are, on the eve of the first day of spring practice at Georgia.

Practice opens Thursday afternoon, with the first session being squeezed in just before UGA’s spring break. The second practice won’t come until March 16. Spring drills end April 10 with the G-Day intra-squad game.

Here are what I expect to be the top five storylines of the Bulldogs’ spring practice (and please add your own below):

1. The quarterback derby. (Duh.)

Georgia has no quarterback in the program who has ever started a college game, making for what offensive coordinator/quarterbacks coach Mike Bobo calls a “wide open” competition among redshirt freshmen Aaron Murray and Zach Mettenberger and junior Logan Gray. It’s going to be fun to watch how this unfolds.

“The main goal for those guys is to give them equal reps with the No. 1 unit and for each guy to go out there and try to improve every day,” Bobo said. “The …

Continue reading The top five story lines of Georgia’s spring practice (and please add your own) »

Former Florida linebacker Brandon Spikes faced an obvious question from potential employers at the NFL Combine.

The Gainesville (Fla.) Sun says the question went like this:

“Why did you try to gouge a player’s eyes out?”

The player, of course, was Georgia freshman running back Washaun Ealey.

And Spikes’ answer to the NFL teams that asked the question?

“I told them it’s the SEC, Florida-Georgia is a big rivalry,” Spikes said, according to the Sun. “There were a lot of emotions going on. Both sides were taking shots at each other. But that’s why I suspended myself. That’s not the way the game is supposed to be played.”

The apparent attempted eye-gouging –-  cameras caught Spikes sticking his fingers inside Ealey’s facemask — occurred during Florida’s Oct. 31 victory over Georgia. Spikes was suspended for one half of the following game by Florida coach Urban Meyer, and the player extended his own suspension to a full game because, he said at the Combine,  “I didn’t want young …

Continue reading NFL teams making Brandon Spikes answer for Ealey eye gouge »

Spring football practice starts in the SEC this week, with LSU hitting the field today and Georgia on Thursday.

Here’s the full list of the practice dates for SEC teams, provided by the league today:

Spring Practice Dates (Start / Finish)

Alabama – March 12 / April 17

Arkansas – March 30 / April 24

Auburn – March 24 / April 19 (Spring Game – April 17)

Florida – March 17 / April 10

Georgia – March 4 / April 10

Kentucky – March 31 / April 24

LSU – March 1/ March 27

Ole Miss – March 27 / April 17

Mississippi State – March 23 / April 17

South Carolina – March 16 / April 10

Tennessee – March 18 / April 17

Vanderbilt – March 17 / April 10

NCAA rules allow each team 15 spring practices.

Georgia’s spring practice concludes with the G-Day Game on April 10. The intra-squad scrimmage will begin at 2 p.m. and be televised on CSS.

Georgia has a quirky spring schedule, with the first practice on Thursday and the second not until March 16. The interruption is because of spring break at …

Continue reading Check out SEC spring football practice dates here; G-Day time, TV set »